What are "carbon emissions"?

What are "carbon emissions"?

Terry Tamminen (Author & Environmental Policy Advisor) gives expert video advice on: What is a "fossil fuel"?; How does our use of fossil fuels cause global warming?; What are "carbon emissions"? and more...

A carbon emission is the carbon dioxide that is emitted when we burn fossil fuel. And essentially if you think about something like coal or oil as being organic material, trees and plants and dinosaurs, from millions of years ago that were laid down in the earth. That material was basically carbon, just like we are, and when we dig it out of the earth and burn it, one of the gases emitted is carbon dioxide.